Chapter 1113

Half a minute before the airing, Mars traces the gurgling to Vegapunk's severed brain and wonders whether this might be the man's actual body. He stamps on the broadcast snail to crush it, then rages on seeing it was only a plain Den Den Mushi dressed up as the real one, meaning a decoy led him astray while the genuine feed plays on. Cursing as he flies clear of Punk Records, he watches audiences everywhere tune in, among them Kaya and her companions at Syrup Village, the residents of Karakuri Island, Torino Kingdom's people, and even the outlaws holed up on Hachinosu. Mars tells the elders nothing can halt it now, and that York said the scientist means to take up the cause Ohara's scholars began twenty-two years earlier.

Catching word that Bonney is in peril, Sanji sprints to the shoreline just as Nusjuro closes in to kill her, and his foot uppercuts the elder hard enough to draw blood. Nusjuro shifts to his full bakotsu form and clamps down on Sanji, who loses his grip on Vegapunk's body, but Oimo and Kashii charge in to pin the elder. Atlas snatches the body while Bonney calls on Distorted Future to balloon into a giant, aiming to stamp Nusjuro flat.

Through it all, the recorded scientist confesses two grave sins for which execution awaits, having keyed the playback to begin when his heart stops. He urges the world not to condemn whoever ended his life, saying he is in no place to weigh right and wrong. On the Labophase, Saturn finishes his climb, marks Robin as the one Akainu let slip, and lashes out, recognized by Robin as a voice from that fateful day. Nami yanks her aside as Zeus, Chopper, Usopp, and Brook strain to hold the line. Frustrated, Mars weighs razing the lab, but Saturn and Warcury caution that doing so forfeits both their military strength and their ability to remake the Mother Flame. The recording then drops its warning: the world is bound to sink beneath the Blue Sea.

Readers get their first look inside Punk Records' machinery, the tank cradling Vegapunk's brain among the revealed details. Mars wrecks what he takes for the transmission snail, but it proves a decoy, and the sheer number of snails foils his hunt for the genuine one. The Five Elders suspect the scientist wants to finish Clover's interrupted account of the Ancient Kingdom from twenty-two years ago.

Sanji pulls Bonney clear of Nusjuro's strike, the giants Oimo and Kashii throw themselves into the fray, and Bonney swells to enormous size to fight back. Saturn moves to kill Robin while the present crew shields her. The recording at last begins, confirming Vegapunk is dead, naming two unspecified grave sins behind his execution, and disclosing a coming fate in which the world descends below the Blue Sea.

Chapter 187 had earlier carried Stalemate as its English name too. Glimpsing Vegapunk's jarred brain calls back to his Nomi Nomi no Mi power, and Robin's recognition of Saturn's voice ties him to the Ohara tragedy she lived through. The cover is a color spread depicting the crew rendered as chess pieces, with Robin seated as the one moving them.